Hudson Austin

Hudson Austin (26 April 1938-) was the President of Grenada from 19 to 25 October 1983, succeeding Bernard Coard and preceding Nicholas Brathwaite.

Biography
Hudson Austin was a member of the New Jewel Movement of Grenada, and was trained in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago while serving in the Grenadian Army. In 1979 he participated in the revolution of Maurice Bishop which led to the People's Revolutionary Government of Grenada taking power. He was left in command of the Grenadian armed forces, and in October 1983, Austin had Bishop executed in support of Bernard Coard's coup d'etat after a factional split. Then, he disbanded the existing government of Coard and formed a revolutionary military council with himself as chairman. He imposed a curfew on all civilians, saying that everyone who left their homes would be shot.

After only six days of Austin's revolutionary dictatorship, the United States invaded Grenada in Operation Urgent Fury. He was captured alongside Coard and several military leaders accused of taking part in the coup, and in 1986 they were sentenced to death; their sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment. In 2007, he responsibility for the suffering of the Grenadian people in a mitigation plea, and on 18 December 2008 he was released from prison at the age of seventy.